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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 40:19 - 40:19
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
19 He is the firstling of the ways of God;
He, his Maker, reached to him his sword.
20 For the mountains bring forth food for him,
And all the beasts of the field play beside him.
21 Under the lote-trees he lieth down,
In covert of reeds and marsh.
22 Lote-trees cover him as shade,
The willows of the brook encompass him.
23 Behold, if the stream is strong, he doth not quake;
He remaineth cheerful, if a Jordan breaketh forth upon his mouth.
24 Just catch him while he is looking,
With snares let one pierce his nose!
God's ways is the name given to God's operations as the Creator of the world in Job 40:19 (comp. Job 26:14, where His acts as the Ruler of the world are included); and the firstling of these ways is called the Behêmôth, not as one of the first in point of time, but one of the hugest creatures, un chef-d'oeuvre de Dieu (Bochart); רֵאשִׁית not as Pro 8:22; Num 24:20, of the priority of time, but as Amo 6:1, Amo 6:6, of rank. The art. in הָעשֹׁו is, without the pronominal suff. being meant as an accusative (Ew. §290, d), equal to a demonstrative pronoun (comp. Ges. §109, init): this its Creator (but so that “this” does not refer back so much as forwards). It is not meant that He reached His sword to behêmoth, but (on which account לו is intentionally wanting) that He brought forth, i.e., created, its (behêmoth's) peculiar sword, viz., the gigantic incisors ranged opposite one another, with which it grazes upon the meadow as with a sickle: ἀρούρῃσιν κακὴν ἐπιβάλλεται ἅρπην (Nicander, Theriac. 566), ἅρπη is exactly the sickle-shaped Egyptian sword (harpu = חֶרֶב). Vegetable food (to which its teeth are adapted) is appointed to the behêmoth: “for the mountains produce food for him;” it is the herbage of the hills (which is scanty in the lower and more abundant in the upper valley of the Nile) that is intended, after which this uncouth animal climbs (vid., Schlottm.). בּוּל is neither a contraction of יְבוּל (Ges.), nor a corruption of it (Ew.), but Hebraeo-Arab. = baul, produce, from bâla, to beget, comp. aballa, to bear fruit (prop. seed, bulal), root בל, to soak, wet, mix.
(Note: Whether בְּלִיל, Job 6:5; Job 24:6, signifies mixed provender (farrago), or perhaps ripe fruit, i.e., grain, so that jabol, Jdg 19:21, in the signification “he gave dry provender consisting of barley-grain,” would be the opposite of the jahushsh (יָחֻשׁ) of the present day, “he gives green provender consisting of green grass or green barley, hashı̂sh,” as Wetzst. supposes, vid., on Isa 30:24.)
Job 40:20 describes how harmless, and if unmolested, inoffensive, the animal is; שָׁם there, viz., while it is grazing.
In Job 40:21 Saadia correctly translates: Arab. tḥt 'l-ḍâl; and Job 40:22, Abulwalid: Arab. ygṭı̂h 'l-ḍl mdlllâ lh, tegit eum lotus obumbrans eum, by interpreting Arab. 'l-ḍl, more correctly Arab. 'l-ḍâl, with es-sidr el-berrı̂, i.e., Rhamnus silvestris (Rhamnus Lotus, Linn.), in connection with which Schultens' observation is to be noticed: Cave intelligas lotum Aegyptiam s. plantam Niloticam quam Arabes Arab. nûfr. The fact that the wild animals of the steppe seek the shade of the lote-tree, Schultens has supported by passages from the poets. The lotus is found not only in Syria, but also in Egypt, and the whole of Africa.
(Note: The Arab. ḍâl or Dûm-tree, which likes hot and damp valleys, and hence is found much on the northern, and in great numbers on the eastern, shores of the Sea of Galilee, is called in the present day sidra, collect. sidr; and its fruit, a small yellow apple, dûma, collect. dûm, perhaps “the not ending, perennial,” because the fruit of the previous year only falls from the tree when that of the present year is ripe. Around Bagdad, as they told me, the Dûm-tree bears twice a year. In Egypt its fruit is called nebq (נֶבֶק, not nibq as in Freytag), and the tree is there far stronger and taller than in Syria, where it is seldom more than about four and twenty feet high. Only in the Wâdi 's-sidr on the mountains of Judaea have I seen several unusually large trunks. The Kâmûs places the signification “the sweet Dûm-tree” first of all to Arab. ḍâl, and then “the wild D.” In hotter regions there may also be a superior kind with fine fruit, in Syria it is only wild - Neshwân (ii. 192) says: “dâla, collect. dâl, is the wild Dûm-tree,” - yet I have always found its fruit sweet and pleasant to the taste. - Wetzst.)
The plur. is formed from the primary form צִאְל, as שַׁקְמִים from שִׁקְם, Olsh. §148, b; the single tree was perhaps called צֶֽאֱלָה (= Arab. ḍâlt), as שִׁקְמָה (Ew. §189, h). Ammianus Marc. xxii. 15 coincides with Job 40:21: Inter arundines celsas et squalentes nimia densitate haec bellua cubilia ponit. צִלְלֹו, Job 40:22 (resolved from צִלֹּו, as גֶּלְלֹו, Job 20:7, from גִּלֹּו),
(Note: Forms like גֵּלֶל, צֵלֶל, are unknown to the language, because it was more natural for ease of pronunciation to make the primary form סִבְבּ into סֵב than into סֵבֶב, גֶּלְלֹו (vid., p. 449), צִלְלֹו, might more readily be referred to גָּלָל, צָלָל (in which the first a is a helping vowel, and the second a root vowel); but although the form קָטָל and the segolate forms completely pass into one another in inflection, still there does not exist a safe example in favour of the change of vowels of קָטָל into קֶטְלִי; wherefore we have also derived אֶגְלֵי, Job 38:28, from אֵגֶל, not from אָגָל, although, moreover, ̇̇ frequently enough alternates with ̇̇ (e.g., יֶשְׁעֲךָ), and a transition into ̇̇ of the ̇̇ weakened from ̇̇ (e.g., יֶדְכֶם) also occurs. But there are no forms like נֶטְפֵי = נִטְפֵי from נָטָף in reality, although they would be possible according to the laws of vowels. In Ges. Handwörterb. (1863) גֶּלְלֹו stands under גֵּלָל (according to the form לֵבָב, which, however, forms לְבָבֹו) and צִלְלֹו under סְלַל ( a rare noun-form, which does not occur at all from verbs double Ayin).)
is in apposition with the subj.: Lote-trees cover it as its shade (shading it). The double play of words in Job 40:22 is not reproduced in the English translation.
הֵן, Job 40:23, pointing to something possible, obtains almost the signification of a conditional particle, as Job 12:14; Job 23:8; Isa 54:15. The Arabic version appropriately translates Arab. 'n ṭgâ 'l-nhr, for Arab. ṭgâ denotes exactly like עָשַׁק, excessive, insolent behaviour, and is then, as also Arab. dlm, ‛tâ, and other verbs given by Schultens, transferred from the sphere of ethics to the overflow of a river beyond its banks, to the rush of raging waters, to the rising and bursting forth of swollen streams. It does not, however, terrify the behêmoth, which can live as well in the water as on the land; לֹא יַחְפֹּוז, properly, it does not spring up before it, is not disturbed by it. Instead of the Jordan, Job 40:23, especially in connection with יָגִיחַ, the 'Gaihûn (the Oxus) or the 'Gaihân (the Pyramus) might have been mentioned, which have their names from the growing force with which they burst forth from their sources (גִּיחַ, גּוּחַ, comp. 'gâcha, to wash away). But in order to express the notion of a powerful and at times deep-swelling stream, the poet prefers the יַרְדֵּן of his fatherland, which moreover, does not lie so very far from the scene, according to the conception at least, since all the wadis in its neighbourhood flow directly or indirectly (as Wâdi el-Meddân, the boundary river between the district of Suwêt and the Nukra plain) into the Jordan. For יַרְדֵּן (perhaps from יָרַד)
(Note: Certainly one would have expected יַרְדֶּן like גַּרְזֶן, while יַרְדֵּן like יַעְבֵּץ, יַעְזֵר, appears formed from רָדַן; nevertheless יַרְדֵּן (with changeable Ssere) can be understood as a change of vowel from יַרְדַּן (comp. יֵשֵׁב for יֵשַׁב).)
does not here signify a stream (rising in the mountain) in general; the name is not deprived of its geographical definiteness, but is a particularizing expression of the notion given above.
The description closes in Job 40:24 with the ironical challenge: in its sight (בְּעֵינָיו as Pro 1:17) let one (for once) catch it; let one lay a snare which, when it goes into it, shall spring together and pierce it in the nose; i.e., neither the open force nor the stratagem, which one employs with effect with other animals, is sufficient to overpower this monster. מֹוקְשִׁים is generally rendered as equal to חַחִים, Isa 37:29; Eze 19:4, or at least to the cords drawn through them, but contrary to the uniform usage of the language. The description of the hippopotamus
(Note: Vid., Grehm, Aus dem Leben des Nilpferds, Gartenlaube 1859, Nr. 48, etc.)
is not followed by that of the crocodile, which also elsewhere form a pair, e.g., in Achilles Tatius, iv. 2, 19. Behemoth and leviathan, says Herder, are the pillars of Hercules at the end of the book, the non plus ultra of another world distant from the scene. What the same writer says of the poet, that he does not “mean to furnish any contributions to Pennant's Zoologie or to Linnaeus' Animal Kingdom,” the expositor also must assent to.